USA Judo Triple 9th dan Promotions (May 2014)

Luis Gardia (82 yrs), Edwin 'Ed' Maley (82V yrs), and Harold 'Hal' E. Sharp (87 yrs) were promoted to 9th dan by USA Judo on May 3, while James Webb, former USJA president was promoted to 8th dan by USA Judo. Previously, Luis Gardia  and Hal Sharp already had been promoted to 9th dan by USJF last year (2013) in April, which was the first time ever that USJF promoted someone to 9th dan who was not of Japanese ancestry.

Publicly released information about the background of these senior jûdôka is available here:

Luis Gardia: http://konanjudo.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/orgins-of-pan_american-judo-by-luis-guardia-2.jpg

Hal Sharp: excellent extensive article in Black Belt of January 1965, page 40 and following (use Google for this as the link is too long to post here); also: http://magazine.fighttimes.com/a-martial-arts-love-affair/

Edwin Maley: Proclamation by the City of Tampa, FL, here: http://www.tampagov.net/proclamations/20090912_Professor_Edwin_Maley_Day.pdf
Newspaper article here: http://brandon.patch.com/groups/sports/p/teaching-judo-for-64-years-ed-maley-of-brandon
There is a whole trove of articles about his extensive jûdô career here: http://www.floridaschoolofjudo.net/

Congratulations to these three gentlemen for their achievements and their long service to the judo community and I hope that they will remain in good health and have the continued ability to share their experience with their students.

My photos are gone of our Westover AFB Judo with Ed Maley. While I only worked out with him once there I still remember him. Congrats Ed.